Finishing Strong

We all made it home to California by Friday night. I don’t remember much about that evening except spending it in a vegetative state staring at the television before falling asleep. Saturday was a whirlwind of activity – bike trainer workout, obedience class with Stanley, Sharks day game, a quick nap, then out to Los Gatos with Nigel, who missed us while we were gone and needed some intense catching-up beers with Jeff. While the boys reveled in their Jagermeister shots, I ate pasta and drank water and wondered how I’d be feeling in the morning…

This really has been a great, huge, long training week, with my long ride and run in Arizona as well as two long swims. Today I wrapped up the week with a training run at the Mermaid Run. The Mermaid events are a local, all-women series of races (running and triathlon). I did one of the Mermaid sprint tris back in my first year of triathlon (the hardest OW swim I’ve ever had). Many of my Smofit racing friends had been training for the 5K or 10K at today’s race and when I saw a 50-minute run on my schedule for the day, I couldn’t resist – I asked Liz if it was OK to do it within the race, provided I did not blow my workout instructions and “race” the race. It was really exciting to see so many strong women tackling the distances for the first time or the thirtieth time, supporting each other throughout the race. It was freeeeeezing cold and drizzly and windy before the race start, and then just cold and windy for the actual race.

Our 10K crew – Justine, Sara, Melissa, Chris and me

Two of our 5K racers Christina and Meredith, with cheerleader extraordinaire Marcia

I ran with the camera too, because clearly I wouldn’t be able to go out too hard while juggling a camera, right? Here is a view along the San Francisco Bay shore where we ran.

I love this finish line photo of Justine pushing herself hard for a new PR!

After the race, with Meredith, Mary Sue (who I did not see before the race start - she finished her first race since hip surgery – it is so good to have her back again!) and Christina

Go Melissa go!!!! Being paced in by Chris and Justine to finish her first 10k!

So how did my workout go, you might ask? I was a good girl and stuck to my prescribed heart rate zones and paces and whatnot. But you see, I have not run a road 10k race in 3 years, not since just after I started running. And you know, what a shock, my body has improved a bit since then. I ran a new personal best 10k time (by 6-7 minutes – this course was actually 0.2 miles longer than a 10k) and placed 5th out of 72 in my age group. I literally jogged in to the finish line on my cool down, so I couldn’t be more amused by this!

And so, another week ends. A very good training week, full of work that I know will pay off down the line. When I consider that this week's mileage was comparable to the week of tri camp, and that I felt DEAD after camp, and that I feel GREAT today, it is especially encouraging!

Training totals for week 13 (March 16-22):
Swim: 5000 yards
Bike: 87.3 miles
Run: 19.7 miles
Strength: 1 hours
Total time: ~12.5 hours